Ai Weiwei assists asylum seekers after their arrival by a dinghy to the Greek island of Lesbos on 28 January. Ai has posed on a beach in Lesbos to recreate the photograph of drowned Syrian refugee toddler Alan Kurdi.
Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

For the recreation, Ai lay on a pebbled beach on the Greek island of Lesbos. His pose was similar to that of Kurdi’s lifeless body, which washed up on a beach near the Turkish town of Bodrum and was captured in a September 2015 photo.

According to the Washington Post, the image of Ai was taken by photographer Rohit Chawla for the magazine India Today and an accompanying exhibition at the India Art Fair. Ai and his team were involved in the staging of the image.

Co-owner of the India Art Fair, Sandy Angus told the Washington Post: “It is an iconic image because it is very political, human and involves an incredibly important artist like Ai Weiwei.

“The image is haunting and represents the whole immigration crisis and the hopelessness of the people who have tried to escape their pasts for a better future.”

Ai Weiwei gives a chocolate cookie to a girl after her arrival with other asylum seekers on Lesbos. Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

On Thursday Ai assisted asylum seekers who had arrived on a dinghy that landed on a beach near Lesbos’s Mytilene port. Photos and videos posted on the Facebook page of Ai’s studio with the hashtags #refugees and #lesvos depicted women, men and children wearing lifejackets and being given food and drink.

Ai Weiwei shuts Danish show in protest at asylum-seeker law

He told the Guardian on Thursday: “My moments with refugees in the past months have been intense. I see thousands come daily, children, babies, pregnant women, old ladies, a young boy with one arm.

“They come with nothing, barefoot, in such cold, they have to walk across the rocky beach. Then you have this news; it made me feel very angry.

“The way I can protest is that I can withdraw my works from that country. It is very simple, very symbolic – I cannot co-exist, I cannot stand in front of these people, and see these policies. It is a personal act, very simple; an artist trying not just to watch events but to act, and I made this decision spontaneously.”